Anambra State Government has reiterated its resolve to ensure that offenders of child labor are prosecuted.
The Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare Mrs. Ify Obinaabo made this known in her office in Awka when a good Nigerian brought a seven-year-old boy caught hawking in Ochanja market in Onitsha during school hours.
The Women Affairs Commissioner who expressed sadness over the recent surge in child labor noted that state government will not relent until offenders are brought to book.
She noted that one of the effects of child labor is psychological instability as according to her, the victim’s childhood has been taken away from him or her.
Mrs. Obinabo warned parents to enroll their children in school because the Professor Soludo led administration has given every child in Anambra free education hence no excuse for the child not be in school.
Narrating his experience, the seven-year-old boy who hawks sachet water by name Chinecherem Ọgazị said he is a primary two pupil living with his grandmother in Onitsha while his mother is in Lagos with his elder brother.
According to him, it was his grandmother who asked him to hawk pure water so that they would be able to feed.
Chinecherem stated that his grandma by name Nkechi usually gives him two hundred and fifty naira every day to purchase water and that he treks from 33 to Ochanja each day to make sales.
On how much he makes a day and what the money is used for, the seven-year-old said that he makes about two thousand naira everyday which they use in buying rice and spaghetti for feeding.
It was during one of his entrepreneurial engagements that he was caught by some good Samaritan who brought him to the Commissioner.
The good samaritan also donated the sum of ten thousand, two hundred naira to help enroll him in school.
Mrs. Obinabo used the opportunity to commend the good spirited members of Ochanja market union who saw the boy and deemed it fit to bring him to her and charged others to emulated such for a better society.
As at the time of this report, the Women Affairs boss Mrs. Obinabo has summoned the grandmother while the boy is in the care of the state government.
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